All Is Calm, All Is Bright
by someplaceovertherainbow
Summary: It's Christmas Eve, and the first Christmas for Mary&Matthew with their son George. But what happens when Mary wakes to find Matthew is not beside her? (S3 AU oneshot set during the Christmas of 1921)


**A/N:** So it's fast approaching Christmas Day where I am right now (in fact there is less than an hour to go!) so I thought I would give you all a little present :) A Christmas fic...MM of course! hehehe. Enjoy my lovelies and have the most wonderful of Christmases wherever you are in the world :) xxxxxxx

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**All Is Calm, All Is Bright.**

Mary awoke with a start when she rolled over to the left side of the bed only to find the sheets empty and crumpled, the warmth that was her husband missing from his usual place. Normally it wouldn't worry her but with that horrid car accident having occurred only three months earlier every second without him caused a horrible nauseating feeling to stir in her stomach. The thought of losing Matthew so soon after having spent five years apart had felt like there were hot knifes being driven into her body over and over. Mary couldn't bear the thought of having to experience that again.

It was the temperature of the sheets beside her that set the alarm bells going, if they had been even slightly warmer than they were she would not have worried but they were almost ice cold and Mary could feel her heart beat quicken and her hands shake. He hadn't been beside her for some time. The lump in her throat was beginning to rise but she supressed it to the best of her ability, she couldn't let herself cry, not just yet.

The fire had not yet died out but the air still held a slight chill and she grabbed her robe and wrapped it around herself tightly. She had to find Matthew. No matter what had happened, she just had to know.

Mary stepped wearily out into the hall, trying to determine which direction Matthew may have taken earlier. Her eyes strained against the darkness; it was almost impossible to see anything, even the glow of the moonlight wasn't enough to light the depths of the house. But just as she was about to give up and retreat back to her bedroom to curl beneath the covers and silently cry herself to sleep her eyes caught a glimmer of something.

At first she wasn't entirely sure what it was, she tried to dismiss it as nothing more than the glow of a bedroom fire but upon closer inspection Mary knew it was certainly not that. What made this unusual light an even odder sight was that it was coming from a gap in the door to the nursery.

Mary walked quietly up to the door and pushed it open, what she saw before her sent the most glorious of feelings flowing through her veins. All the dread and despair she had been feeling only moments earlier disappeared into the ether. The tears that were threatening to fall were no longer out of fear but out of sheer joy. She no longer needed to fret about Matthew's whereabouts for there he was. There _they_ were. Her two darling boys; Matthew leaning back in the rocking chair with a wide eyed George looking up at his father in awe. With one arm Matthew cradled his son protectively against his chest and with the other he held a small open book. Mary could scarcely remember seeing a greater look of delight on Mathew's face as he read quietly to his dearest little chap.

Mary closed her eyes for just a moment and listened to the sweet sound of her husband's voice filling the air around them.

"…And laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose …" Mary could do little to supress a giggle at the sweet faces her husband was pulling at her son. Matthew stopped reading momentarily upon hearing Mary and he looked up at her with a grin big enough to rival the size of the moon at its fullest. "I didn't mean to worry you my darling…"

"I wasn't worried…" She whispered quietly as she closed the door behind her and perched herself on the arm of the chair. Matthew looked up at her knowingly; of course she had been worried and she knew that lying to her husband was almost useless. Matthew could always see straight through her, sometimes he knew the truth even before she did "Perhaps I was just a little."

"I had all but forgotten that I hadn't read this to George…" He gestured to the book in his hand before returning his gaze to his son who now gurgled happily upon seeing his mother "My father used to read it me when I were boy, every Christmas Eve and I thought I ought to…"

"I think this is the _perfect _Christmas tradition to share with your son Matthew." Mary kissed Matthew's forehead gently

"_Our_ son."

"Yes." She smiled "Our little prince. You ought to continue with the story though, I think he would like to know how it ends."

Matthew cleared his throat and looked back down to the book to pick up where he began, despite his knowing the poem off by heart "He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—_ "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"_"

Before the last of the story had left Matthew's lips George's little eyelids had fluttered shut and he was drifting off into the wonderful world of dreamtime. Matthew looked back and forth between his sleeping son and his wife who gently stroked the hair on her son's head, whispering sweet words as she lulled him into the deepest of slumbers. He wondered how he had been so fortunate as to have a life as perfect as the one that he had. Perhaps luck had alluded him in the past but right at that moment he had everything he could have ever dreamed for and more.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Mary whispered

"I was just thinking… we're so incredibly lucky Mary." Matthew smiled placing a gentle kiss on George's forehead before turning to place a kiss on her lips "I know you were brought up to believe you'd have so much more than this. I know this isn't what you had dreamt your life would be like…"

"You're right you know?"

"Oh…" He couldn't help the slight disappointment in his reply

"It's not at all as I expected nor is it what I dreamed it would be." She reached out to caress his cheek softly "It's so _so _much better my darling."

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_Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight! :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

note: sections lovingly borrowed from "A Visit From St Nicholas (The Night Before Christmas)" by Clement Clarke Moore


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